Allosauroidea
| Allosauroids | |
|---|---|
| |
| Allosaurus skull at the San Diego Natural History Museum. | |
Scientific classification 
| |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Clade: | Dinosauria |
| Clade: | Saurischia |
| Clade: | Theropoda |
| Clade: | †Carnosauria |
| Superfamily: | †Allosauroidea Marsh, 1878 |
| Families | |
Allosauroidea is a superfamily or clade of theropod dinosaurs which contains four families — the Sinraptoridae, Allosauridae, Carcharodontosauridae, and Neovenatoridae. The oldest-known allosauroid, Sinraptor dongi, appeared in the Middle Jurassic (Bathonian stage) of China, and the latest-known survivor of the group is the neovenatorid Orkoraptor of the Late Cretaceous, (Maastrichtian stage). Allosauroids had long, narrow skulls, large orbits, three-fingered hands, and usually had "horns" or ornamental crests on their heads. The most famous and best understood allosauroid is the North American genus Allosaurus.
Classification
Taxonomy
- Superfamily Allosauroidea
- Genus Becklespinax?
- Genus Poekilopleuron[1]
- Family Allosauridae
- Family Carcharodontosauridae
- Family Neovenatoridae
- Family Sinraptoridae
Phylogeny
The clade Allosauroidea was originally proposed by Phil Currie and Zhao (1993; p. 2079), and later used as an undefined stem-based taxon by Paul Sereno (1997). Sereno (1998; p. 64) was the first to provide a stem-based definition for the Allosauroidea, defining the clade as "All neotetanurans closer to Allosaurus than to Neornithes." Kevin Padian (2007) used a node-based definition, defined the Allosauroidea as Allosaurus, Sinraptor, their most recent common ancestor, and all of its descendants. Thomas R. Holtz and colleagues (2004; p. 100) and Phil Currie and Ken Carpenter (2000), among others, have followed this node-based definition. However, in some analyses (such as Currie & Carpenter, 2000), the placement of the carcharodontosaurids relative to the allosaurids and sinraptorids is uncertain, and therefore it is uncertain whether or not they are allosauroids (Currie & Carpenter, 2000).
The cladogram presented here follows the 2010 analysis by Benson, Carrano and Brusatte.[2]
| Allosauroidea |
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References
- ^ Benson, R.B.J. (2010). "A description of Megalosaurus bucklandii (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the Bathonian of the UK and the relationships of Middle Jurassic theropods". Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 158: 882. doi:10.1111/j.1096-3642.2009.00569.x.
- ^ Benson, R.B.J., Carrano, M.T and Brusatte, S.L. (2010). "A new clade of archaic large-bodied predatory dinosaurs (Theropoda: Allosauroidea) that survived to the latest Mesozoic." Naturwissenschaften, 97(1):71–78. doi:10.1007/s00114-009-0614-x
- Currie, P. J., and X. Zhao. 1993. A new carnosaur (Dinosauria, Theropoda) from the Upper Jurassic of Xinjiang, People's Republic of China. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 30:2037-2081.
- Holtz, T. R., Jr. and Osmólska H. 2004. Saurischia; pp. 21–24 in D. B. Weishampel, P. Dodson, and H. Osmólska (eds.), The Dinosauria (2nd ed.), University of California Press, Berkeley.
- Sereno, P. C. 1997. The origin and evolution of dinosaurs. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 25:435-489.
- Sereno, P. C. 1998. A rationale for phylogenetic definitions, with application to the higher-level taxonomy of Dinosauria. Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie Abhandlungen 210:41-83.